Rage (video Game) - Reception

Reception

The game received a great deal of recognition prior to its release. It won the Game Critics Awards of E3 2010 for "Best Console Game," and "Best Action Game," along with the "Special Commendation for Graphics." IGN awarded it their "Best Overall Game" and "Best Shooter" in their E3 2010 awards. It also won many of GameTrailers' E3 2010 awards, including "Best New IP," "Best First Person Shooter," "Best PS3 Game," "Best Xbox 360 Game," "Best PC Game," and "Game of the Show."

Rage has received generally positive reviews from critics according to the aggregate review site Metacritic. The game has received praise for its graphics and shooting mechanics, and criticism mostly aimed towards the game's story and poor out-of-the-box PC compatibility.

Electronic Gaming Monthly praised the game, giving it a score of 9.5/10. They stated that the game features impressive visuals, brutal and satisfying combat, fluid animations and advanced enemy AI, numerous entertaining side-missions, and an addictive multiplayer component. The one complaint they had with Rage was that the final boss fight was unsatisfying compared to the rest of the game's impressive combat scenarios. Ars Technica gave a more negative review of the Xbox 360 version, criticizing lack of story, undeveloped characters, uninteresting quests and a "broken save system" (autosave checkpoints being too far apart, forcing frequent manual saves which are slow on the Xbox 360), while acknowledging the quality of the visuals.

Game Informer gave the game a 9 out of 10, saying that "while most people will rave about Rage's technology, this game's most impressive component is its gunplay... the mutated hostiles of the wastes... crawl out of the woodwork, scamper along walls, and create a sense of absolute terror," and "the challenge posed to the player is to put them down quickly or pray that every close range shotgun blast takes a large chunk of flesh." The soundtrack was described as "appropriately moody," and the animation system as one of the most "impressive" ever made. However, the review also argued that "the driving sections are no more than optional diversions" and "the lack of content in the overworld is disappointing." In conclusion, the story and overworld were described as "dated", but the "pulse-pounding gunplay" was hailed as "a nice change of pace" that "stands out in a crowded market." IGN praised the game's graphics, calling them some of the best ever, but criticized the game's story and forgettable characters.

Rage has also been recognized in several 2011 end-of-year award ceremonies. It was nominated for "Best Graphics" and "Best New Franchise" in Xbox360Achievements' Game of the Year 2011 Awards.64 GameTrailers nominated it for "Best First Person Shooter" and "Best New IP."65 At the 2011 Spike VGAs, it was nominated for "Best Graphics"66 and "Best Shooter."67 Technical issues with the PC version has led to articles explaining to users how to "fix" Rage's problems. AMD has released drivers that attempt to fix some of the issues. On October 10, 2011 patches for the Windows version were released which added various graphical options to the game and fixed a number of driver-related graphical issues.